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Archive for October, 2017

Hymn to What’s Bare

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on October 21, 2017| 2 Comments »

 

 

 

Last night’s wind scoured

the trees and stripped

their boughs—

it is easy in today’s calm

to wish my soul had been out

in the woods last night.

Emptiness reveals more

than all the gold, all design.

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Annual Check Up

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 20, 2017| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

The doctor checks their pulses,

their ears, their throats,

knee reflexes and weight

and dubs them healthy,

gives them high fives

without mentioning

(did he not notice?)

that they have wings.

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One Almost 5’10

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 19, 2017| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

the tree I planted

now taller than I—

my empty hand

still remembering

the weight of the acorn

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Where We Are Headed

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on October 18, 2017| 3 Comments »

 

 

 

I resist any kind of discourse that anchors itself in identity and proceeds from there. As I said before, I want to get behind categorical distinctions and find and work with what human beings share and how, potentially, people can coexist in a world that is extraordinarily diverse.

            —Michael D. Jackson, “The Politics of Storytelling” in the Harvard Divinity School News

 

 

At first we just say flower. How

thrilling it is to name. Then it’s

aster. Begonia. Chrysanthemum.

 

We spend our childhood learning

to separate one thing from another.

Daffodil. Edelweiss. Fern. We learn

 

which have five petals, which have six.

We say, “This is a gladiolus, this hyacinth.”

And we fracture the world into separate

 

identities. Iris. Jasmine. Lavender.

Divorcing the world into singular bits.

And then, when we know how to tell

 

one thing from another, perhaps

at last we feel the tug to see not

what makes things different, but

 

what makes things the same. Perhaps

we feel the pleasure that comes

when we start to blur the lines—

 

and once again everything

is flower, and by everything,

I mean everything.

 

 

 

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One Lament

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 17, 2017| 3 Comments »

 

 

 

In the ragged purr of the cat

in my lap I hear all the sun

she has yet to curl into,

all the mice she has yet

to chase, all the days

we don’t have left.

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In an Hour We Live a Lifetime

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 16, 2017| 2 Comments »

 

for Susan

 

 

Walking the world of dry leaves

and rickety bridges,

there as in old letters,

we marvel at the things

we once knew that we have

just recently discovered—

How new it all is again.

How we orbit the same sun

every day and still

can be astonished

by the way things

shine.

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One More Chance to Struggle Gracefully

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 15, 2017| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

That’s what cars are for,

said the master whistler, when I told him

I could not whistle.

I auditioned for him

with my one-note draft,

and he said, Yeah, I

can work with that,

which I took to mean

that I could work with that.

Eventually, he said,

you’ll arrive at a tone.

And so I whistled

four hours as I drove north,

starting with Moon River,

Skylark, and Paris in Springtime,

then, demoralized

by lack of progress,

turned on the eighties station

and created a breeze

to accompany INXS, Howard Jones,

Prince and Tone Loc.

The difference between

what I heard in my head

and what came from my lips—

so much beauty

missing. And just

before arriving at my own

front door, I had somehow

begun a gusty rendition

of When the Saints Go Marching In,

and thought to myself,

yeah, I think I might

be getting it, but five

verses later laughed

at my longing for success.

When I opened the door

of the car, I felt the wind

meet my face. I let it

carry the almost notes

and decided tomorrow

I’d try some Moondance

and Fever before Hot Cross Buns,

knowing how it takes

a lot of wind

before one’s ship comes in.

 

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One Out of the Comfort Zone

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 15, 2017| 4 Comments »

 

 

 

stepping off the cliff

half a moment before the ground

growing wings

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Taos Storytelling Festival, October 14

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 14, 2017| Leave a Comment »

What is the difference between storytelling and poetry? I think they are both trying to build the same bridge–helping us connect with each other and the world around us.

I’ll be performing tonight at the Taos Storytelling Festival along with Cisco Guevara of Taos, Andy Offutt Irwin of Georgia and the winner of last night’s story slam. If you’re in Taos, I hope you can join me at 7 p.m. at the Taos Community Auditorium. And if you can’t, you can still read about it here ….

After the story slam tonight, I am eager to go to more storytelling events–intoxicating!

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One Message in a Bottle

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 13, 2017| 2 Comments »

 

 

not a genie at all

but a love poem in which

you are what is wished for

 

to read the story behind the poem, visit Cargo Poem

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